


big mistake. big. huge.

by somedaycomesback



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-08
Updated: 2020-07-08
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:41:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25141060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somedaycomesback/pseuds/somedaycomesback
Summary: Olivia finishes packing up and then she throws on a leather motorcycle jacket and black sunglasses.  She looks, well, like a babe.“What is this, Grease Lighting?” he says.She looks at him critically.  “Hmm, no, cause if it were, you’d have more hair.”
Relationships: Olivia Benson/Elliot Stabler
Comments: 3
Kudos: 37





	big mistake. big. huge.

**Author's Note:**

> they knew manhunt (2x18) couldn’t be about elliot and olivia because we’d be too powerful
> 
> (set before or around season 1)

*

“Where are we on the Murphy case?” says Cragen.

“Well, the assault happened three years ago, vic claims her classmate Melissa witnessed it, but we checked Melissa out and she moved to Vermont last year,” Elliot says, tossing up and down a beanbag. Dickie left it in his briefcase. Kid’s always doing that, last week it was a nerf gun. Guess he wants his dad to have more fun at work.

“It’s a dead-end,” Olivia says, clicking her pen. She’s annoyed at him, he forgot why, but lately when she’s annoyed she leans over her desk so he can see right down her shirt. She’s a real jackass sometimes. 

“Last I checked,” says Cragen, “the Special Victims Unit was supposed to be an _elite squad_ , not a bunch of Girl Scout giver-uppers.”

“That’s very offensive to the Girl Scouts who are an enterprising group of young women and don’t deserve any comparison to these morons,” says Munch. Elliot throws the beanbag, nails him in the diaphragm. 

“I mean, what do you want us to do, Captain,” says Olivia, holding her hands out, “Drive halfway to Canada?”

“That’s exactly what I want you to do, Detective Benson. Alice Murphy’s dad donated half a million dollars to kids with ass cancer-" 

"Actually it was cystic fibrosis," Munch corrects.

Cragen inhales deeply. "To kids with _cystic fibrosis_ , and we all know this unit doesn’t need any more bad press.”

“Haven’t you ever heard of the SVU road trip? It’s an institution. Man, me and Jeffries had an incredible time in Virginia Beach!” says Munch.

“It’s incredible you came back from that trip alive,” says Jeffries, barely looking up from her file.

“Captain,” Elliot says in a low voice, “Kathleen’s got a recital tomorrow...”

“I’ll go with Olivia,” offers Munch. Liv looks game, and he’s one second away from agreeing but something stops him. Maybe it’s the idea of Munch driving, which is practically reckless endangerment.

“Nah,” he says, already imagining all the ways Kathy’s gonna make him pay. “Nah, I’ll go.”

“Too bad, Olivia,” says Munch. “We could’ve done a cheese-tasting.”

*

Elliot goes home and yeah, it’s that bad. He spends the night on the couch, thinking he's too old for this shit, and wakes up early enough to pack a duffel bag. Kathy’s awake, she’s a light sleeper, but she doesn’t say anything, just conspicuously tosses to the other side of the bed. He goes to the kids’ rooms to kiss them goodbye, promises Kathleen he’ll take her to Red Robin soon, just the two of them. Kids pick the weirdest restaurants to fixate on. There was one vic who’d only talk at Claim Jumper. Imagine that.

Then he hits the road about 6:30. He parks outside Liv’s apartment, tries to avoid the puddle. He thinks about paging her down, but at the last minute he decides to go up and get her. He likes seeing her apartment, the bachelor pad, he calls it. It’s like a window into the single life: full-sized bed, clothes on the floor, one toothbrush. She owns four plates, total. He’s checked. 

He buzzes her apartment and shouts, "Benson!" into the monitor. There's a muffled groan on the other end. “Stabler,” she says, opening the door just before he knocks. He gives her the once-over: white t-shirt, belted jeans. Mussy hair, like she just woke up.

“Guess it’s casual Friday,” he says, handing her a coffee. He settles down on her sofa. Picks up the glass of water she left on the table and takes a sip. No telling how long it’s been there. The woman lives like an animal. 

“I’m going to stop letting you in,” she says absent-mindedly, as she walks around the apartment throwing clothes in a gym bag.

“Why’s that?”

“Because every time you come in, you case the joint." 

Okay, so he’s not as subtle as he thinks he is. 

“What have you got to hide?” he says. 

She raises an eyebrow. “Plenty.” His mouth goes dry. Flirting is already second nature between them, and it's innocent, almost fraternal, except when it isn't. Olivia finishes packing up and throws on a leather motorcycle jacket and black sunglasses. She looks - well, like a babe. 

“What is this, Grease Lighting?” he says.

She looks at him critically. “Hmm, no, cause if it were, you’d have more hair.”

This woman. 

*

Traffic’s not bad once they’re out of the city. Olivia drives about three hours before they get off at a gas station to switch. They’re somewhere in lower Massachusetts, near the Berkshires. He fills up the tank while she buys snacks. The sun is bright, almost blinding against the asphalt and chrome.

She comes out of the gas station chatting with a redhead in military fatigues. The guy actually starts flexing. Olivia's making that face, the one she usually reserves for suspects she's trying to sweet-talk, the deliciously arched eyebrow, the quirked lip. 

Elliot honks. She rolls her eyes and comes back to the car, opening a bag of salt and vinegar chips. 

“Don’t get that all over the car,” he says. She flips her sunglasses up like some California girl. 

“You’re such a dad sometimes.” 

In the car they play 20 Questions. It takes Olivia seven to guess he’s thinking of an aardvark. 

“How’d you know?”

“’Cause you’re predictable,” she says, looking down at the map.

“I am not predictable,” he says. 

“You missed the exit.”

“What?”

“The exit, to get on the other freeway.” 

“Crap. You couldn’t’ve told me earlier?”

“You had the map earlier,” she says mildly. 

He gets off at the next exit to double back and gets a bright idea, scans for the first empty parking lot and pulls in. Olivia looks around quizzically and suddenly he guns the engine and starts doing donut holes, spinning them faster and faster until her dark hair is flying and she has to hang on to the roof handle. She whoops like a teenager at a concert. 

“Who’s predictable, now, hotshot?” he shouts over the sound of the tires skidding. Olivia throws her head back to laugh.

“You better run, Clyde, the cops are gonna be after us,” she says.

“We are armed and dangerous,” he points out.

*

With no more hijinks, they make it to White River at one. They’ve arranged to meet Melissa Jenkins at three, so they stop in the town’s only restaurant for lunch. It’s a classic diner, one waitress, a redhead who looks like she’s been there since they laid the foundation for the building. Olivia orders a pastrami on rye and Elliot gets the French dip. They have a theory about diners, which is that they’re exactly fifty-fifty, hit or miss, you could be eating sawdust or the best sandwich of your life and it’s all in the toss of a coin. So usually they make a bet when they hit a new one.

“I bet it’s good,” he says.

“Oh yeah?” she says, looking around at the décor and the clientele with a critical eye. It’s half empty, but the guys in the corner look like regulars. “What’s on the table?”

“Five bucks. And I let you pick the music on the way back.” 

“Five bucks and loser does the paperwork for this case.” 

“Deal.”

Food’s delicious. Too bad Olivia’s a sore loser, she grumbles that her sandwich is dry even though she practically licks the plate clean. _And_ steals half his fries. They still have an hour to kill so they walk around the town square aimlessly, stopping in the little gift shop and trying on the fur hats. Elliot buys a postcard and Olivia buys a piece of maple candy in the shape of a tiny man. She bites off his head and offers it to Elliot.

“Thanks,” he says, taking a leg. “You ever go on road-trips as a kid?”

“Oh, my mother couldn’t drive.”

“How’d you learn?”

She shrugs her shoulders. “On the Autobahn.”

He looks at her, standing with her arms folded in her jacket and sunglasses, and smiles.

Olivia’s more than a partner. She’s a friend, even a best friend. It’s kind of unbelievable how he lucked into someone like her—smart, talented, with a dark, dry sense of humor that matches his exactly. Someone he could drive six hours with and not wanted to strangle. Not that they don’t have their disagreements. And it hasn’t exactly been easy on his marriage working with someone who looks like—someone who looks like _that_. Kathy calls her Wonder Woman. “Wonder Woman save you from any flying bullets today?” or “Wonder Woman called, you left your briefcase at the office.”

“What?” she says, and he realizes he’s staring. 

“Nothing. Let’s head over to the Jenkins place, might take us a while to find it. Can’t trust these country roads.” He’s right; they drive around for thirty minutes looking for the turn to Melissa Jenkin’s farm. Eventually he spots a wooden sign ten feet back from the road. 

The farm is well-maintained, a white Victorian building with stables around the back. “Always wanted a pony,” says Olivia. Melissa Jenkins is a tiny blonde, the daughter of a real estate tycoon who moved out of the city to be closer to her animals. She’s raking manure when they find her, with surprising vigor for someone her size. She greets them like old friends, and promptly enters the house and returns holding an almond cake.

“I’ll pass,” says Elliot, noting that Melissa did not wash her hands. “But Olivia loves cake.” 

She throws him a murderous look.

The interview is a bust. Melissa is pitchy, forgetful, says she _maybe_ saw Alice leave the party with a guy, but she can’t remember if he was blond or brown-haired and she certainly didn’t know anything about an assault, she would’ve remembered that. Neither of them get the sense that she’s lying, which brings them back to Alice Murphy: why was she so sure Melissa saw something?

“Desperation? It’s been three years, maybe she needed to believe someone saw,” Olivia suggests in the car.

“Maybe. Whatever it is, there’s something’s fishy about this case, I say we go back and reinterview Alice.”

*

They drive two hours south. By then the sky has grown deep and indigo, the texture of velvet. The Best Western is just off the highway and it’s run by an Indian woman wearing a pink “I <3 Celtics” shirt. Elliot loiters in the lobby while Olivia checks in. 

“Two rooms?” the woman says quizzically. Then her face relaxes. “Ah, you’re not married. Very traditional!” 

“Uh, we’re not a couple,” Olivia says, accepting the room keys. “Have a good evening!”

“You know, I’ve never stayed in a hotel room alone,” he says in the hallway as she scans the numbers for their rooms. The carpet pattern, he swears it’s the same as at his Uncle Patty’s old place. 

“Oh, it’s the best. Big bed to yourself, you get to use up all the little shampoo.” 

“Slow your rolls princess, this ain’t the Ritz Carlton.” 

“Ha,” she says, swiping the key to her room. They look at their respective doors and then stare back at each other a little awkwardly.

“You wanna get changed, grab some dinner?” he says. 

“I’m full from lunch. Gonna get a headstart on that paperwork. Night, El.”

“Night.” 

He shuts the door and sets his bag down on the floor. Looks around at the big empty bed and inspects the shower. She kind of has a point. It’s peaceful here on his own, although he misses the clamor of home. First things first, he hunts around for a restaurant menu and orders a mushroom pizza. Why not, he throws in some garlic bread. He does some push-ups while he waits for the food and tries to ignore the sound of the shower running next door. 

After dinner he picks up the phone to call home. It rings once, twice, before Maureen picks up and immediately launches into a story about a disagreement she had with her best friend, ’scuse me, _former_ best friend. Kathy comes on for a minute, and she doesn’t sound angry anymore, she just wants to know if he can pick up the dry cleaning on his way back into the city. “Alright baby, love you too, goodnight,” he says.

Then, finally, when he’s run out of things to do, he sits back in bed and trying not to wonder what Olivia’s doing. There's something about their proximity that feels a little transgressive. Before he realizes it, he’s considering the way her cheeks flush when she steps out of the shower, her strong, precise hands tying a robe around her waist...

He's a good husband, not a saint.

But God works in mysterious ways, and tonight he sends him a sign in the form of an inconveniently timed knock on his door. "Alright, big guy," he thinks, throwing on a shirt and looking through the peephole. 

“Change your mind?” he says as he opens the door.

“Got bored. Poker?” Olivia asks. So much for the black lingerie: she's wearing a tank tops and pajama pants, which he notes have snowmen on them.

“Anything but strip. I ever tell you about the time I lost my clothes to Abbie Carmichael?”

Olivia laughs. “I've seen the pictures. But tonight, my friend, we’re playing for these.”

He catches the bag of peanut m&ms she throws at his chest.

“Excellent, excellent. You do know I’m best in the precinct, right?”

“We’ll see.”

She beats him, twice. Remarkably, she's an even worse winner than loser.

“Oh, who’s your daddy?” she says, throwing down a royal flush and gathering a small fortune of m&ms to her corner of the coffee table. Then she opens his pizza box and munches on his leftovers. Typical.

“You got lucky.”

“Mm, was that the first time I beat your ass or the second?” 

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Movie?” he suggests. She flips through the channels before they settle on Pretty Woman. They argue about the ending, Elliot thinks it’s romantic, Liv thinks Julia Roberts is better off without the vulture capitalist. “You’re real second wave, I’ll tell you that much,” he says. And somehow they’ve migrated to the bed, lying on top of the flowery quilt. They’re deliberately, appropriately apart, but if he’s very still he can feel her chest rising and falling. And then he hears her breathe deepen, and he looks over and sees her head has tilted onto her shoulder in sleep. She looks so peaceful. There’s no anger in her face, no tension. No trace of the evil that penetrates them everyday, sinking into their bones.

He realizes he’s holding his breath. He should move her, but then, what’s the harm? They’re wearing clothes, they aren’t even touching. Besides, it’d be cruel to wake her up. Eventually he picks up the remote and turns the credits off. He closes his eyes and tries to clear his mind. And then Olivia turns in her sleep, and her hand curls into his chest, and the touch races through his body like a bolt of lightning. He wants to grab her wrist, pin her underneath him, run his mouth over the soft skin of her neck and her breasts.

So he exhales, a long, tormented sound, and with excruciating willpower he pulls himself out of the bed. He hunts around for her room key and finds it tucked under the pizza box. In the moonlight, he takes one last look at her and sees she’s rolled over to the middle of the bed, her leg pulled up as if it were tossed around somebody’s side.


End file.
